The Florida Panthers are losing one of their best defensemen in Jason Garrison to free agency, so they went out and signed a replacement on the blue line for him, inking former Senators defenseman Filip Kuba to a two-year deal. The contract is worth a reported $4 million per season.
Kuba was originally drafted by the Panthers, so in that regard the 36-year-old's career comes full circle by going back to Florida. He figures to get a lot more time in Florida this time than he did originally though as he played only 18 games in two seasons with the Panthers.
"Filip is an experienced player who adds further depth to our blue line," GM Dale Tallon said. "He is a big, strong and responsible, shutdown defenseman who averaged more than 23 minutes of ice time per-game last season. We are confident that he will fit very well into our top six and help our power play. We look forward to his contributions to our team."
This one is kind of a head-scratcher. The deal is very reminiscent of the one Dale Tallon gave to Ed Jovanovski last year, a defenseman over 35 to a big-money deal. Jovanovski was signed fof four years at $4.5 million per season, so you see a trend here.
This past season in Ottawa Kuba had six goals and 26 assists while playing with Erik Karlsson, who as you know was a scoring machine. Kuba will likely get a lot of the responsability with Brian Campbell on the Florida blue line.
The reason why it is head-scratching at least to me is that the Panthers apparently wouldn't pony up for Garrison when the price might have been lower than what it is today. If they were willing to give Kuba $4 million per season, you'd think they would have been OK giving that to Garrison who is just 27 and is still growing after a breakout year.
Once again Tallon was faced with trying to reach the cap floor this season -- although not anywhere near as far away as it was last summer -- so signing Kuba to this deal will help get there in a hurry.
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